The present invention relates to a novel method for forming a glove with custom logo.
Conventional gloves, including golf gloves, may have logo or insignia attached to the gloves to identify the mark of the glove manufacturers, the mark of the manufacturers"" customers or any other markings or aesthetic designs. Conventionally, the logo is made from color yarns stitched directly on to the glove or stitched to a cloth backing, which is then stitched to the glove. U.S. Pat. No. 5,708,979 suggests such method of attachment. This conventional method of attachment requires that the logo be attached to the glove during the manufacturing process of the glove.
This conventional form of attachment offers few opportunities to change the logo to meet ever-changing consumer tastes and market demands. Typically, to change the logo the manufacturer must alter the stitching machine at the manufacturing site and ship the gloves with the new logos to the customer. This process may take significant time to complete, because often the manufacturing site is distant from the customer and the manufacturing site often has other orders waiting to be filled. Furthermore, if the same logo is to be attached to other items, such as golf bags, golf balls, jackets or shirts, the process of coordinating schedules among the different manufacturers becomes cumbersome.
Hence, there remains a need for another method of attaching custom logo to gloves.
The present invention is directed to a method for forming a glove with a custom logo. This method comprises the steps of forming a thermoplastic pad, printing the logo on the thermoplastic pad, and adhering the thermoplastic pad to the glove. The thermoplastic pad may have a substantially flat shape or curved edges. Preferably, the pad has sufficient flexibility to resist being peeled away from the glove when subject to bending.
Additionally, the method may further include the step of coating the pad with a protective coating before the printing step. The ink used in the printing process may be an ultraviolet curable ink or an electron beam curable ink. These inks have relatively short cure time and are durable, and may be applied on top of the protective coating. The printing step is preferably a pad printing process, which may be an engraving process or an etching process.
In accordance to another aspect of the invention, the printing step comprises the steps of inputting the logo as an image in a computing device, shading the image to create a gray scale bitmap, transferring the bitmap to a plate to form a printing plate, and utilizing the printing plate to print the logo on the thermoplastic pad. The preferred shading method is a dithering shading method. Alternatively, a halftone dot method may be used.
In accordance to another aspect of the invention, the step of adhering the thermoplastic pad to the glove includes applying adhesives or adhesive tape between the pad and the glove. The pad may also be adhered on a recess formed on the glove. Alternatively, the pad may be adhered on top of a strap of the glove or on a recess at the top of the strap. Alternatively, the thermoplastic pad may be adhered to the glove by melting at least a portion of a surface of the pad opposite to the logo and pressing the pad to the glove to form a bond therebetween.